The all-party meeting convened by the Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh last Sunday was expected to bring out differences amongst the parties on matters related to inclusion of the Priem Minister and Higher Judiciary within the ambit of the inquiry by the proposed Lokpal legislation.
A lot of speculation was voiced in newspapers that the Government was expected to present the parties a comparison draft of the provisions of the Lokpal Bill suggested by the civil society members and those put forward by the five Union Ministers in the joint drafting committee.
Surprisingly, the meeting, when it did take place on Sunday did not generate as much issues as were speculated by the media. Instead, the Government came under attack for engaging civil society led by Anna Hazare before consulting the political parties.
There was consensus that setting up of the institution of lokpal should not undermine the established processes of enacting the law. The all-party meeting though agreed that the Government must bring before the next session of Parliament a strong and effective Lokpal Bill following duly established and constitutional procedures.
It is known that the procedure adopted by Shri Anna Hazare for forcing the Governemnt to wake up to the need of a Lokpal Bill to end corruption in the country was required. However, thereafter Anna’s insistence on chairing the committee to draft the lokpal bill had divided the opinion of the country for and against.
The group which was against his and civil society’s inclusion justified their claim saying that this method was against the provision laid down in the Constitution. The group which was for inclusion of civil society felt that if it weren’t done this way, the lokpal bill would never see the light of the day.
Shri Anna Hazare has thus achieved his objective of the lokpal bill being tabled before the cabinet by the 15th August albeit without all his recommendations of including the Prime Minister and the Judiciary in the ambit.
It remains to be seen that once the lokpal bill is passed by the cabinet whether Shri Anna Hazare will go on his lesson-teaching fasts as his recommendations were not included and whether he will have as much support from the public.
Only time will tell.
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